


Beach Body

by Rosencrantz



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: AU Totem Mimikyu Leaves The Thrifty Megamart, Fairytale format, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Insecurity, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-04 20:28:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16353740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/pseuds/Rosencrantz
Summary: An AU where Totem Mimikyu seeks a new life outside the Thrifty Megamart. In fact, a whole twenty feet outside it!





	Beach Body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShamanicShaymin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShamanicShaymin/gifts).



> Thank you to [Phosfate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phosfate) for the beta!
> 
> And thank you, ShamanicShaymin, for the fun prompts!

Once upon a time there was a Mimikyu. It thought it knew the secret to being loved.

It did not.

It had pictures of what you had to do to be loved up on the wall of its special room in the back of the Thrifty Megamart. You had to be yellow, soft, and cuddly. You had to have long pointy ears and cute pink cheeks. You had to say 'Pikachu!' 

You did not.

But the Mimikyu believed this was what it had to do. So the Mimikyu made itself a costume out of an old rice sack it took one day from the shelves. It made a tail from a crooked branch it found outside the store, by the garbage bins. It used a marker from the stationery section to make itself an adorable, cuddly face. 

Once the costume was complete, Mimikyu rested and meditated in its special room on what it would mean to be Pikachu. To be loved.

Then it wandered through the dusty aisles of the Thrifty Megamart in search of its new partner.

It waited for someone to find and love it.

It waited a long time.

This confused the Mimikyu, because it had picked a high-traffic area of the store -- a lady had once stood there on Saturdays handing out free samples of vegan Slowpoke tails -- where lots of humans liked to come, so it should have found a partner easily. 

Then it occurred to Mimikyu that it had not seen any humans in quite a while.

"Excuse me," it said to a Gastly rolling around on a dusty conveyer belt, "Do you know where the humans are? Pika."

Gastly laughed and rolled away.

Mimikyu sighed. It found a shopping cart being pushed by a Haunter.

"Hello," said Mimikyu. "Do you know when the humans will be coming by? Chu."

"They're alllll around yoooooou," said the Haunter, and it burst out laughing even louder than the Gastly, then floated up through the ceiling.

Mimikyu looked around hopefully, but did not see any humans. 

So it made one last attempt, the last resort it had hoped to avoid, and went up to the doll laying on its side by rusty brown stain near the cash register. Crawling sooo slowly on the tentacles that were hidden by its flawless pikachu costume, Mimikyu got right up to the doll.

Then Mimikyu slowly poked out a tendril and touched the doll.

The doll sat up and screamed.

Mimikyu shivered under its costume as the doll floated up into the air, spinning and screaming. Then with a burst of purple smoke, out popped the Gengar.

"Did I scare you?" Gengar chuckled.

"Very much," said Mimikyu. "Do you know when the humans are going to come to work and shop again?"

Gengar floated down so its body was halfway through the floor and it was eye-level with Mimikyu (how rude, not being eye-level with the costume's eyes!) and it smiled its alarmingly wide smile.

"The humans aren't coming back," it said with a chuckle.

"What!" said Mimikyu. "Pikachu!"

"The humans are gone and never coming back, you silly thing," said Gengar. With one clawed hand it reached out and swiped off Mimikyu's costume, breaking it to pieces.

Mimikyu shrieked, distressed, and flung itself underneath the tattered remains of its disguise. Gengar simply laughed and slide back into its doll.

Mimikyu wanted nothing to do with these awful _ghosts_ and fled out the shop door, bursting the door open and rattling the weird piece of cardboard taped to the door with the symbols 'C-L-O-S-E-D P-E-R-M-A-N-E-N-T-L-Y" on it. Why couldn't humans use Unown like everybody else? No Pokemon could read that!

Mimikyu stopped on the shore just outside the store. Thrifty Megamart had been built near a beach. Most things in Alola were built near a beach. Statistically, pretty much everything in Alola was near a beach, even the volcanoes and deserts.

Mimikyu wanted to keep running forward, but it couldn't. The water would completely finish its costume, and the mere notion of being out on the sand, completely exposed, was unbearable. It sat on the sand and started trying to repair the costume. Mimikyu needed its Pikachu costume! It was never going to find a partner if it couldn't be loveable!

Then the sand started shifting under it and Mimikyu was sucked under.

Then the sand spat Mimikyu out.

"Oh, _ugh_ ," said a voice like grating rocks. "You're not a Pikachu."

Mimikyu laid on its back (or what amounted to its back), stunned.

"You tricked me," said the voice.

"What just happened?" said Mimikyu to the stars.

"What happened," said a -- large sand castle? -- looming over Mimikyu, "was that you very rudely tricked me and cost me a meal. And you should apologize."

"You thought I was a Pikachu!" said Mimikyu, thrilled.

"Yes. Don't sound so pleased about it. Lying isn't something to be proud of," said the sand castle. "You are most certainly not a Pikachu. You are not even food."

"I'm Mimikyu! What's your name!" said Mimikyu, sitting up and waving its tentacles in a friendly greeting. There was a screeching noise behind Mimikyu, but Mimikyu only cared about getting more praise from this strange pokemon.

"I'm Palossand and you should go now before you scare off my next meal. See? You've just made that Krabby skitter away screaming and then pass out." The sand castle starting moving away on the shifting sand, towards the hapless Krabby. 

Mimikyu writhed after it. "No no! You still have my costume! You have to spit that out too!"

"I don't know where it went. Go now," said Palossand.

Mimikyu vaulted over Palossand to land in front of it, then wrapped it tentacles around Palossand's 'body'.

"GIVE IT BACK," said Mimikyu in a voice that made several assorted bird pokemon fall from the sky.

Palossand merely moved… around Mimikyu, sand flowing easily.

Mimikyu was left sitting (as much as it could sit) there with empty tentacles. Palossand had moved along to the Krabby, who was starting to stir.

Mimikyu buried itself in the sand. It had already seen enough of what happened when people saw its true self. Horror, screaming. That was why it needed to be a Pikachu. Until Mimikyu could find its costume again, here it was alone on a cold beach on a cold night, friendless. 

Except Palossand hadn't seemed to care much. Palossand's reaction to Mimikyu had been the opposite of fear. If annoyance was the opposite of fear. Actually any reaction other than screaming was fine by Mimikyu. But this would make retrieving Mimikyu's costume more difficult. He lacked any handy Abilities like Thief, or even Pickup.

For the entire next day Mimikyu chased after Palossand around the beach, hiding under the sand and careful not to be seen by humans or Pokemon. Palossand mostly ignored the little (when compressed) pokemon. Instead Palossand focused its efforts on trying to entice various pokemon and -- humans! -- to play with it. 

Much to Mimikyu's surprise, humans loved Palossand! Even with its attitude. Of course, Palossand kept trying to eat or possess the humans, but it had an amazing approach rate.

After another pair of children had run screaming away from Palossand's efforts to make them into lunch, Mimikyu approached Palossand again.

"Please, Palossand, give me back my costume."

"I told you, I don't know where it is now and I don't feel like digging for it," said Palossand. "And besides, why do you want to be a Pikachu? You're fine as you are."

"Everyone's terrified of me," said Mimikyu from beneath the sand, only two black eyes visible. "I want to be loved."

"Foolish creature, if you're disguised, it won't be you that they love! So for your sake, I will now refuse further." Palossand flowed away. Mimikyu stayed where it was and thought very hard. It noticed the light changing back and forth in the sky while it thought, the same way it had in the Thrifty Megamart's windows while Mimikyu had been meditating on becoming Pikachu, but Mimikyu didn't pay it much mind.

When it finally came to a decision, the beach was different. There were a lot more Sandygast than Mimikyu remembered. And beach chairs. And people! There had only been a few visitors when it first arrived but now the place was covered in them.

It went in search of Palossand, sand forming in a wake behind it. It knew now to stay below the sand, only eyes visible.

Palossand was easy to find, well-fed and huge now, being fawned on by a pair of teenage humans.

"Hello," said Mimikyu to Palossand.

"Oh, hello," said Palossand. "I was wondering when you'd turn up again. I thought perhaps you'd made yourself faint."

"I had a lot of thinking to do," said Mimikyu. It started piling sand up around it, adding little shells for decoration.

"Is… that castle building itself?" said one of the teenagers.

The other teenager leaned forward to touch Mimikyu's new 'costume', causing it to dislodge and reveal Mimikyu's staring face from underneath.

Both teenagers screamed and passed out.

"Oh goody!" said Palossand. But its plans were thwarted when other humans came running.

"Drat you! Come with me," it said and the Palossand flowed down the beach at a rapid clip, beyond the bathers. Mimikyu raced after, digging quickly through the sand.

"That was nearly a very good meal," said Palossand.

"I am sorry," said Mimikyu.

"So I see you decided that becoming a Pikachu was not for you," said Palossand, looking as much like a pile of innocent sand as possible.

"No, but I saw you. You are loved like a Pikachu and it's much easier to build a sand costume than a cloth one." said Mimikyu.

"Ha! That is still not yourself, but that is a better choice. I have always been better than any electric rat."

"Yes. I will find a partner this way," said Mimikyu solemnly. 

Palossand sprouted a dark tunnel with a pebble inside for an eye and focused on Mimikyu. "Then your costume will fail again. Humans do not stay at the beach, they go to the land where there is no sand."

"Oh," said Mimikyu. It didn't know what else to say.

"But I am flattered by you costume. You may stay around me, if that suits you." 

Mimikyu's tentacles fluttered in surprise.

"The Sandygast I have made are fine enough company, but you have much better manners. And won't compete with me for food."

"I only eat a little," Mimikyu chirrupped. "I...may not eat at all, I'm a bit fuzzy on that topic."

"Even better!" said the Palossand.

"Yes! I would love to stay! Thank you!" said Mimikyu.

"Very good. Now, let's see if we can scare us -- well, mostly me -- up some dinner…"

The moral of this story is sometimes flattery gets you everywhere.


End file.
